The source for all things related to Spider-Man comic book collecting. Featuring the latest issues and appearances found at your local comic shop each week, and updates on hard-to-find variants and giveaways.

Friday, August 12, 2011

How to get the Blister Amazing Spider-Man #666 store variant

With 142 variations of the Amazing Spider-Man #666 store variant program (not including the regular direct and newsstand versions), it's logical to believe that at least one of the issues will be hard to get. So which one will it be?

From my experience it's the Blister.jp variant from a Japanese online ordering only website. This one has folks pulling their hair out, because Blister WILL NOT ship to the U.S. -- only within Japan. And most of us don't have friends or family in Japan that can order the book and send it back to America.

So what are you supposed to do.

I pondered the problem for a while, then did some out of the box thinking. A quick Google search later and I had the answer.

I came across a site called Tenso.com, which provides a service where you get a Japanese mailing address so you can shop on Japanese sites all you want, have items shipped to the Tenso.com warehouse where they bundle your goods and ship them to your door.

Here's my experience:

Wednesday, August 3rd
I created my profile on Tenso.com -- which is free -- and they provided me a Japanese mailing address tagged with a special code so they could identify and store my packages.

Armed with my Japanese address, it's time to search the Blister.jp website for the Spider-Man comic (http://www.blister.jp/item19927.html). I recommend using a Google Chrome browser as it now has translation tools built right into it. You just right-click on a page and tell it to translate. The browser even detects what the native language is. Very cool.

Filling out the order information with your Japanese address can be a little tricky deciphering what information goes into which field, but once you figure that out and pay with a credit card, you're done.

Thursday, August 4
I get an email notification from Blister.jp confirming receipt and shipment of the order.

Monday, August 8
I get an email notification from Tenso.com that they've received my package. All I have to do at this point is login to my account and pay for the fees to send the package stateside. They accept both credit card and Paypal payments.

Tuesday, August 9
I get an email notification from Tenso.com that my package has been shipped.

Thursday, August 11
The package arrived in excellent shape. The Blister.jp packaging of the comic book was done very well in a firm cardboard box, and the book was received in high grade.

Tenso.com didn't open my package, but merely slid it into a package envelope and sent it on its way.

So all in all a great experience. A little over a week and one of the hardest Spider-Man #666 store variants was in my hands.

So what did all of this cost me?

Blister.jp charged 540 yen for the comic plus 600 yen for shipping. Tenso.com charged a service fee of 490 yen plus 1200 yen for shipping. My total out of pocket was 2830 yen or just a little over $31 bucks.